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I quit the tech industry

eev.ee

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Re: I quit the tech industry

#451

Post by spiritplumber »

billpaetzke wrote: post #63

> I've worked remotely my entire career Perhaps some of the angst stems from this bias. I wonder how well Yelp handles remote workers.

I either work remotely, or work in my home workshop (which is open to the public, if anyone needs to borrow a laser cutter for an hour).

Most of "the basics" in my life are automated; bills are on autopay, I send my stuff to the post office by drone truck, and so on.

It can be very alienating - there are days that I don't see a human being or speak a word with anyone.

The solution is to make sure you actually try to be around people on weekends.... and you MAKE yourself do it. It's way too easy to turtle up.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#452

Post by akgerber »

mootothemax wrote: post #118
chii wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how come it's so cheap to live in poland?

how come it's so cheap to live in poland? Off the top of my head: - The state's still transitioning from a post-communist economy. - Wages are very low. - Relatively high emigration rate "brain drain" (although people are starting to return). - More supply, less demand. You can buy a brand new apartment close to the centre for somewhere around $2000 per square metre / $200 per square foot. Depending on how your housi…

There are plenty of parts of the United States with similar housing costs.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#453

Post by brightball »

breischl wrote: post #434
brightball wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matter of perspective I guess. When I looked at my early mortgage payments and 85% of the payment was interest so after 10 years I would have barely paid down the principle at all. To me, that feels like waste. I invested with steady 12-14% returns for 10 years and then watched it all get wiped out. The interest rate on paying of debt doesn't change. Granted, at current rates it's a lot tougher to make the argument f…

>>I invested with steady 12-14% returns for 10 years and then watched it all get wiped out. I'm guessing you mean that all your gains got wiped out, not that your investments all went to zero. On the other hand, a lot of people spent years paying on a mortgage only to get foreclosed on and lose everything including their principal. ie, that investment went to zero, or maybe even negative. There's a lot to be said for…

Fair point. Getting it fully paid off is the only way around that.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#454

Post by [deleted] »

zxcvvcxz wrote: post #358

An interesting comment I saw in this thread is the suggestion to take medication [presumably to make working a job easier / more manageable]. To this I say -- are you fucking kidding? Working like we do is already fairly unnatural. Taking medication to allow yourself to continue doing something unnatural, which you don't even like, has to be the one of the most dehumanizing things I can think of. That's modern day, s…

[deleted]

Re: I quit the tech industry

#455

Post by slayed0 »

300bps wrote: post #369
fideloper wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. General rule of thumb when deciding between eliminating debt or investing is to compare if the debt interest is greater than investment interest (investment rate of return). If (debt.interest > investment.interest ), pay off debt first. Else, invest.

If (debt.interest > investment.interest ), pay off debt first. Else, invest. I disagree with this tremendously. With your strategy, essentially what you are doing is buying stocks on margin. This magnifies your profits if things goes your way and magnifies your losses if things go against you. Think about it this way - Interactive Brokers is an online brokerage with extremely low margin rates which are often half of…

When they said "investment.interest" I think they meant investment return percentage. I don't think they were advocating for investing on margin and maximizing leverage/risk, but rather deciding whether to put your $ towards your debt or towards an investment.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#456

Post by cmdrfred »

kamaal wrote: post #397
francoisdevlin wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the people who care too much aren't that smart in this case. See the Napoleon anecdote: http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2010/12/27/dumb-and-gets-thing...

Can we stop using the word 'smart' as a synonym for cheating and fraud please? There is nothing smart about faking and pretending to contribute while doing nothing. All the while taking the rewards and benefits which should actually be going to people who do the real work. This even on a short period of time creates an environment which causes the real contributors to go better places leaving the overall ecosystem st…

Stealing credit for other peoples work aside. The hacker mindset to me is to do things in the simplest way possible.

Programmer: "I managed to migrate the database with the program I wrote over the past two months"

Hacker: "I migrated the database with 3 lines of code"

Re: I quit the tech industry

#457

Post by libria »

eclipxe wrote: post #404
libria wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) Developers cannot reliably estimate software timelines. Disagree. Developers can provide reliable low risk estimates that will most certainly be rejected or truncated by management. The problem is not estimates, the problem is every manager fantasizing that their Captain Kirk strategy, "I'll have it fixed in 4 minutes, Captain" "Do it in 2." is some form of motivating leadership.

EVERY manager? Hyperbole there...

I misspoke. I meant more along the lines of

> the problem is any manager

If your greater point is that some developers really are poor estimators, I agree, but all of them operate under pressure to err on the optimistic side.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#458

Post by velikos »

johnward wrote: post #221
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't burnout: " I stay up hours later than I mean to, not even doing anything, just trying to put off sleeping — because the next thing I experience will be waking up and going back to work." This is straight up depression. We need to stop using office-cliches like "burnout" and start addressing the very real mental health issues in the tech industry. Maintaining my mental health is like staying in shape, eatin…

I thought that feeling was just normal. I've experienced it basically since I started working in tech. I can't imagine most people want to actually wake up and go to work. It's not possible. The funny part is I find myself dreaming of going back to stocking shelves at a grocery store like I did in high school. I'd never make enough money to support myself doing something like that though. I romanticize the Peter Gibb…

It is possible. I actually love going to work. Just wanted to provide a counterpoint here.

I didn't always feel like this. I used to work for a depressing place. But since I started working for my current company, the culture, the people, have made it worthwhile.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#459

Post by cmdrfred »

neverminder wrote: post #311
mtrn wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I like open source projects. People writing open source might not write perfect code, but often they at least have opinions and beliefs about how things can or should be. Even if you disagree with decisions, you'll learn something. Corporate code just mirrors corporate structure after a while. More and more lines, where other people are or were responsible, where any reason has been driven out (your learni…

I would have to say that in most cases open source is more "perfect code" than "corporate code".

I prefer open source applications for this reason. If the code is ugly it's less likely to work, and if you write ugly code publicly you are less likely to get work.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#460

Post by drcross »

yebyen wrote: post #211
mootothemax wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't Ireland have a graduated tax system? According to Wikipedia, it does: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_Republic_of_Ire... "The taxation of earnings is progressive" Which makes the OP's post rather confusing. Does any country out there not tax progressively? I just can't imagine it - "Great, you got a pay rise! Now you get to take home less, until your pay rises by another $5,000!" Edit: On second…

That's approximately how I read it. Even if it's his company, money he puts in his own pocket needs to have income tax paid on it (I would suppose this means, after any appropriate corporate taxes are paid by the corporation). If the money does not actually leave the company and go into his pocket, the only taxes that would need to be paid are those (low) corporate taxes. Of what value is money you can't have in your…

This is what I do. I worked hard for three years, pay myself a wage thats in the minimum pay bracket and will travel until the company money is gone. I'm not give a cent more than I have to to those crooks.
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